A Terroristic Divorce

CoCo County Dirty DUI Deputy Resigns
March 11, 2011

Not necessarily an admission of guilt, but Stephen Tanabe, the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s deputy accused of setting up DUI busts to sully the good names of men who found themselves on the wrong end of Chris Butler’s dirty private investigations, officially resigned yesterday. He was arrested for “possession and transfer of an assault rifle and conspiracy to possess and sell controlled substances” which is all related to the investigation in to the drug-dealing ring operated by Butler and former CoCo County Drug Czar Norman Wielsch.

The road is long and lonely and dangerous. You or a loved one may be threatened with jail and prison, with losing everything you have or own, even with being physically and mentally tormented, being murdered or put to death.

You may have a terribly difficult time getting anyone to help you, or getting the news media to cover your story, or even getting someone to listen to you.

This amazingly aware excerpt is from the Corruption FAQ written by Dr. Les Sachs.

Click to download the FAQ which explains the futility of surviving corruption.

Now this story is sounding remarkably like the one I have been experiencing… but I am in Montgomery County Pennsylvania… this happened 3000 miles away in California.

Standard Operating Procedure for the Drug Task Forces in the US. Use Private Investigators to violate the rights of the target. If detected by the target, DESTROY THEM. Yea. It happened to me. And when I figured it out, they retaliated through eight corrupt judges trying to cover for them.

THEY DESTROYED ME BECAUSE I CAUGHT THEM TRYING TO DESTROY ME.

When in doubt, the difference between a private investigator and a confidential informant is employment.

The PI never has a job, and is always looking. This is because he is working as a PI and just pretending to have no job. He will miss appointments, interviews, and reschedule constantly. That is because his schedule is flexible – spent investigating you perhaps.

A confidential informant will have a low paying job because that is about all he can get. He’ll have a tiny police record which will hurt his employment opportunities. BUT, he’ll always make sure he is to work on time. He needs that job. He is afraid of losing it. He is also afraid because one mis-step, or a statement that he is an informant, will land him in jail without any further discussion. Confidential Informants will understand what you tell them, but will rarely speak.

Drug Task Force + Private Investigator + Confidential Informants = CORRUPTION WITH IMPUNITY

An article from the Washington post dated March 23, 2007.

It is the policy of The Washington Post not to publish anonymous pieces. In this case, an exception has been made because the author — who would have preferred to be named — is legally prohibited from disclosing his or her identity in connection with receipt of a national security letter. The Post confirmed the legitimacy of this submission by verifying it with the author’s attorney and by reviewing publicly available court documents.

The Justice Department’s inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue “national security letters.” It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision — demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval — to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents. It did not, however, come as any surprise to me.

Three years ago, I received a national security letter (NSL) in my capacity as the president of a small Internet access and consulting business. The letter ordered me to provide sensitive information about one of my clients. There was no indication that a judge had reviewed or approved the letter, and it turned out that none had. The letter came with a gag provision that prohibited me from telling anyone, including my client, that the FBI was seeking this information. Based on the context of the demand — a context that the FBI still won’t let me discuss publicly — I suspected that the FBI was abusing its power and that the letter sought information to which the FBI was not entitled.

Rather than turn over the information, I contacted lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union, and in April 2004 I filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSL power. I never released the information the FBI sought, and last November the FBI decided that it no longer needs the information anyway. But the FBI still hasn’t abandoned the gag order that prevents me from disclosing my experience and concerns with the law or the national security letter that was served on my company. In fact, the government will return to court in the next few weeks to defend the gag orders that are imposed on recipients of these letters.

Living under the gag order has been stressful and surreal. Under the threat of criminal prosecution, I must hide all aspects of my involvement in the case — including the mere fact that I received an NSL — from my colleagues, my family and my friends. When I meet with my attorneys I cannot tell my girlfriend where I am going or where I have been. I hide any papers related to the case in a place where she will not look. When clients and friends ask me whether I am the one challenging the constitutionality of the NSL statute, I have no choice but to look them in the eye and lie.

I resent being conscripted as a secret informer for the government and being made to mislead those who are close to me, especially because I have doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying investigation.

The inspector general’s report makes clear that NSL gag orders have had even more pernicious effects. Without the gag orders issued on recipients of the letters, it is doubtful that the FBI would have been able to abuse the NSL power the way that it did. Some recipients would have spoken out about perceived abuses, and the FBI’s actions would have been subject to some degree of public scrutiny. To be sure, not all recipients would have spoken out; the inspector general’s report suggests that large telecom companies have been all too willing to share sensitive data with the agency — in at least one case, a telecom company gave the FBI even more information than it asked for. But some recipients would have called attention to abuses, and some abuse would have been deterred.

I found it particularly difficult to be silent about my concerns while Congress was debating the reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2005 and early 2006. If I hadn’t been under a gag order, I would have contacted members of Congress to discuss my experiences and to advocate changes in the law. The inspector general’s report confirms that Congress lacked a complete picture of the problem during a critical time: Even though the NSL statute requires the director of the FBI to fully inform members of the House and Senate about all requests issued under the statute, the FBI significantly underrepresented the number of NSL requests in 2003, 2004 and 2005, according to the report.

I recognize that there may sometimes be a need for secrecy in certain national security investigations. But I’ve now been under a broad gag order for three years, and other NSL recipients have been silenced for even longer. At some point — a point we passed long ago — the secrecy itself becomes a threat to our democracy. In the wake of the recent revelations, I believe more strongly than ever that the secrecy surrounding the government’s use of the national security letters power is unwarranted and dangerous. I hope that Congress will at last recognize the same thing.